The sun had already deserted the eastern side of the villa when, on the morning following these events, Lucy woke from a fitful sleep to find Benson standing beside her.

Benson had slept in her room since the dawn; and, thanks to exhaustion and the natural powers of youth, Lucy came back to consciousness, weak but refreshed, almost free from fever and in full possession of herself.

Nevertheless, as she raised herself in bed to drink the tea that Benson offered her--as she caught a glimpse through the open window of the convent-crowned summit and wooded breast of Monte Cavo, flooded with a broad white sunlight--she had that strange sense of change, of a yesterday irrevocably parted from to-day, that marks the entry into another room of life.

The young soul at such times trembles before a power unknown, yet tyrannously felt.

All in a moment without our knowledge or co-operation something has happened.